


bones to the other side

by akamine_chan



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Sharktopus (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 10:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan/pseuds/akamine_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray knew better.  He <i>did</i>.  </p><p>Everyone knew that the Black Deeps were dangerous and that going there was just asking to get eaten by a wale or ripped apart by a krab or something equally as hideous.  They'd all heard the stories.  The Deeps were inky dark; no one had ever figured out what caused the blackness that hovered like a giant undersea cloud.  So the PTB just fenced it off and warned people and fin away and hoped for the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bones to the other side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omens/gifts), [Lucifuge5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifuge5/gifts), [mizface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/gifts), [Andeincascade (Ande)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ande/gifts), [hazelwho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelwho/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Psychic Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/346319) by [omens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omens/pseuds/omens). 
  * Inspired by [[podfic] bones to the other side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/460796) by [Andeincascade (Ande)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ande/pseuds/Andeincascade), [argentumlupine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentumlupine/pseuds/argentumlupine). 



> Looked over by the lovely Andeincascade
> 
> Title from _Destroya_ by My Chemical Romance
> 
> A mini-Reverse Big Bang - Beelzebot drew the art, I wrote the story. Seriously, check out the art first, because it is awesome.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who cheered for this story. You all are crazy.

Ray knew better. He _did_. 

Everyone knew that the Black Deeps were dangerous and that going there was just asking to get eaten by a wale or ripped apart by a krab or something equally as hideous. They'd all heard the stories. The Deeps were inky dark; no one had ever figured out what caused the blackness that hovered like a giant undersea cloud. So the PTB just fenced it off and warned people and fin away and hoped for the best.

But Frank had the self-preservation instincts of a mussel and so when he went into the darkness, the rest of them followed, like idiots. Ray thought about air reserves but he'd recharged his extra lung before they'd left the City, so he was good for another eight hours. He pinched his earlobe and activated his mandibular headset. "You guys _did_ remember to—"

"Yes, Mom!" Gerard, Mikey and Frank chorused. 

"Stop worrying," Gerard ordered. "We're not kids anymore."

"We turned off our breathing and everything, like good little boys," Mikey teased.

"Fuck off," he mumbled. He couldn't help it. And yeah, they'd all turned sixteen and were legally adults, sure. But that didn't automatically make them any less likely to do stupid things. Especially Frank, who viewed life as a one big challenge. Ray was sure he'd have grey hairs before too much longer.

"C'mon," Frank said, waving them forward toward the net fence. There were big signs affixed at odd intervals to the netting: "DANGER. BLACK DEEPS." They might as well have read "DARE YOU" as far as Frank and Gerard and Mikey were concerned. Frank pulled his knife from its sheath and started sawing at the tough monoweave. "Mikey, Gerard, watch for Dolfin patrols; we don't wanna get busted again."

Ray groaned silently. The last time they'd gotten in trouble and herded home by a Dolfin patrol, his parents had grounded him for _months_. Worse, though, had been the disappointed looks that they'd given him. The guilt had almost killed him. 

It'd be better at this point if he _did_ get eaten by a wale. Or maybe a jeleefish. His parents would be sorry for grounding him and his brothers would be upset about being so mean to him. His smile grew as he imagined it. Lou would regret all of those times he'd made fun of Ray. 

"Ray?"

He shook himself out of his reverie, his hair floating around his head like a cloud. Frank had cut through the fence and was holding it open while Gerard and Mikey finned through. Fuck. They were going to get busted and it was all Frank's fault. "Coming." He kicked forward and entered the forbidden Black Deeps.

They were all going to die, like in one of those old twodee horror medias. He just knew it. 

He followed the Way brothers and Frank, listening to Frank's excited chatter and Mikey's deadpan responses. Gerard had a tendency toward grand pronouncements and a know-it-all-ness that Frank punctured at every opportunity with a great deal of glee, which made Gerard pout. It was ridiculous and Mikey rolled his eyes a lot behind his facemask.

Ray realized, as much as he bitched about the trouble they got into, there was no place he'd rather be than with his crazy friends.

He put a little effort into catching up; the Deeps tended to swallow even the brightest light and he didn't want to get separated from Frank and Gerard and Mikey. _That_ led to certain death, maybe squished by a giant clam or carried away by one of the ginormous starfish that were rumored to live in the Deeps. Ray shuddered, because death by starfish was not very high on his list of priorities. It was slow and painful and not very exciting.

If he was gonna die out here, he wanted it to be a memorable death, one that generations of kids would whisper about in the damp hallways of the City, like a ghost story. _. . .remember when Ray Toro got eaten by that mutant creature? There was nothing left of him but. . ._ People would talk about his family _. . .so sad, destroyed by what happened to Ray. . ._ and Lou would feel really bad about how much he'd picked on Ray. . . 

Ray's headlamp flickered and he tapped at it, confused. He stopped finning to tread water. He'd just recharged the battery and there should be plenty of juice left to keep it going. He shook it, relieved when the light came back on. He clicked it into place on his mask. "Guys?" He looked around, but couldn't see anyone. "Uh, guys?"

"Ray, where are you?" Mikey's voice was clear in his ear, but he couldn't see anyone. 

"You guys left me behind, apparently." Ray clicked his tongue and activated the heads-up display of his facemask. "You guys woulda just swam off without a second thought. . ."

"Not true," Mikey and Gerard chorused. "We would have noticed."

"Eventually," Frank sotto voce'd.

"Fuck you all," he said mournfully. He turned on his sonar and waited for the system to get a reading on his location. The pingbacks were showing a cave system nearby, but didn't show him where Frank, Gerard and Mikey were. "Stupid thing," he muttered, hitting the reset button.

"The Deeps must fuck up the sonar somehow, Ray. You're not showing up on our display." Mikey sounded cheerful, but Ray could hear the thread of worry in this voice. "Just stay where you are. We'll come and get you."

"But we don't know where—"

"Shush!"

"Great." Ray tried to ignore the frisson of fear that shivered through him. He gestured for his comcom to transmit his location to Frank and the Ways, hoping that it was still working. He thought about what his survival teachers had taught him; the first thing to do was to take stock. Okay. He could do that.

He had his knife, strapped to calf. On his belt he had his camera and oh! He had his emergency beacon. If Gerard and Mikey and Frank couldn't find him, he could use that that to catch the attention of a Dolfin patrol and get rescued. He pondered. Unless the Deeps fucked with the beacon signal, as well. 

Maybe there was a _good_ reason the Deeps were off limits.

Fuck.

Ray heaved a sigh. His wetsuit would keep him warm, he had enough air to last him for a while and Gerard and Frank and Mikey were looking for him. He just had to wait, patiently.

His lamp flickered and went out, leaving him floating in darkness.

He was never, ever following Frank anywhere ever again. He was disowning the three of them as friends and once he was safely home, he was going to look for new friends who wouldn't put him into these kinds of situations. Not that he would ever be allowed out again; he was pretty sure his parents were going to ground him forever—

Something flashed on the sonar display, fast and quick and gone before he could properly register it. "Guys?" They had to be near. "Where are you?" He felt something touch his ankle, right above the rubber of his monofin, but couldn't see anything in the blackness. "Guys?"

"Almost—something— _big_ —" Frank's voice was drowned by bursts of static.

Ray tried to puzzle out what Frank had been saying, but was distracted by a rush of current. He finned around quickly, arms outstretched, but there was nothing there. Maybe a rogue thermocline. _Or a wale_ , his brain supplied helpfully. _A hungry wale_. "Fuck that," he said, heart pounding. "Guys? Guys, I'm starting to freak out—"

_no_

It wasn't a voice, precisely. It was more of a feeling of _no_ , denial and refusal twined together with the feeling of being protected and kept safe. 

A strange presence in his mind, something not-Ray.

"Guys?" He spun around, straining his eyes to _see_ , but there was nothing but black. "Hello? Is someone there?" He was broadcasting on the general com freq, so if it was someone besides Frank and the Ways, they would be able to hear him.

_happy_

Warmth washed through Ray, bubbling like laughter. It made him smile, even though there was a rational part of his brain that was freaking out because he was 'hearing' someone's feelings in his head somehow. It was fucked up and freaky.

The tendril of _other_ retreated in fear. _sadness_ at being different, wrong. Rejected.

"No," Ray murmured. "That's not what I meant.”

_stubbornness_  
 _anger_

Ray was strongly reminded of his littlest cousins, the way they quicksilvered from emotion to emotion. He wondered if he should be afraid. "Guys? There's something out here with us." He turned again and sighed with relief as he saw three lights in the distance, approaching him steadily. "Guys?"

"Ray? Oh, thank fuck. There's something—ow, don't hit me, motherfucker."

"We'll be there in just a minute," Mikey said. "Just stay calm."

"I _am_ calm," Ray said, miffed. "But there something—"

_secrecy_

"What is it, Ray?" Gerard sounded concerned. "You okay?"

Ray could almost see Gerard's face, pale and serious behind his mask. "There's—there's something out here, something different. I can feel it."

_fear_

"We know, we picked it up on sonar. It's big, Ray. Real big." Mikey was trying to be reassuring, but there was a quiver in his voice, making it crack.

Fuck. "Like a wale? Something bigger?"

"No, not as big as a wale. Just, bigger than you. Can't seem to lock in its location, though. It's moving too erratically."

Ray shuddered in relief. At least it wasn't a wale. The guys were close, so Ray finned toward them, unwilling to wait.

_loneliness_  
 _fear_

Bracing himself against the onslaught of feelings, he kept going until he was close enough to be engulfed in a rough group hug. 

"Oh, fuck, we were worried—ow," Frank said as Mikey accidentally whacked him in the head.

"Not really," Gerard said, but the look he gave Mikey let Ray know exactly how much they were fronting.

_jealousy_

"Did you feel that?" he asked, bumping his mask against Gerard's.

"Feel what?"

Maybe Ray was just going crazy—sometimes if the ratio of oxy to nitro in your lungs was a little off it could cause problems. He jerked his chin up hard to run diagnostics. When the systems beeped an all clear, he shook his head. "Nothing wrong with the systems."

_anger_

"Whatever is out here is—is _broadcasting_ what it's feeling. . ." 

Gerard's face lit up. "Cool!" He finned around Ray. "That's so awesome, Ray."

Mikey shook his head and pulled his spotlight off of his belt, switching it on. "Do you think it's dangerous?"

Ray shrugged. "How the fuck should I know? I don't even know what it is."

"But you're the one who's feeling whatever it's feeling," Frank pointed out reasonably. He deliberately herded Gerard and Ray closer to Mikey. "The rest of us haven't felt a thing."

"So not fair," Gerard mumbled.

"I'd be glad to switch places with you, Gerard."

_sadness_

Mikey shone the powerful spotlight out into the darkness, sweeping it back and forth, searching for whatever it was that—

"Fuck!" Frank squeaked as Mikey fumbled with the light.

Two big black eyes stared back at them above a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. Definitely too small to be a wale.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Mikey whispered. "What is it? Is it gonna eat us?"

"Dunno," Frank whispered back. "Doesn't look hungry, though."

"How can you tell?"

Frank just shook his head.

Gerard grabbed Mikey's light and shone it across the creature. It was shaped like a wale, a long, lean body, but instead of a tail fin, there was a mass of tentacles like the mythical octopus. "Guys, I think it's a sharktopus."

"But they're extinct!" Frank hissed. 

"Apparently not." Ray shivered as the feeling of being all alone in the world washed over him. "Oh. I think it's the last of his kind."

"Neat," Gerard said, and before anyone could stop him, he finned toward the sharktopus, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Mikey made to go after Gerard, but Ray held him back. "Don't let him go closer," he murmured to Frank before kicking powerfully, catching up to Gerard easily. They were both near enough that the sharktopus could reach out with a tentacle and crush either of them.

"Remind me to yell at you later for doing stupid things," Ray said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah," Gerard breathed, slowly reaching out with a hand to touch the sharktopus' snout.

_wrongness_

It drew back, out of range and Gerard made an unhappy little sound. "I just want to pet you, big fellow."

Ray had to admit he understood Gerard's fascination. Up close, the sharktopus was beautiful in its predatory fierceness. Designed for killing.

 _petting_

Ray shook his head; _that_ was not his thought. "Gerard would have petted you, if you'd let him."

_wrongness_

"Gerard's a nice enough guy," he said reassuringly. "Little weird, but generally okay."

"Hey—" Gerard protested. Mikey and Frank tried to hold back their giggles.

Ray ignored them, finning closer to the sharktopus. Carefully, he held out his hand and laid it against the sharktopus' snout. He had a brief moment to appreciate the smooth texture of the sharktopus' skin before a wave of emotion slammed into him, battering down his defenses and washing over him, blinding him to everything but the presence that was trying to insinuate itself into the nooks and crannies of his mind.

He remembered his family, forever lost to him. 

He remembered being terribly alone, searching for the brightness that would make him whole.

He remembered his surprise at finding the missing part of himself in a strange shape, small and helpless.

Ray opened his eyes and found himself gently held in a tentacle. Gerard and Frank and Mikey were shouting; he could hear the terror in their voices. He shook his head, trying to make sense of what they were saying. "I'm okay, I'm okay," he said, his voice rough and unused. He rested his hand on the sharktopus' side. "I'm okay, guys."

"Ray—fuck, Ray, we thought it was gonna eat you."

He could hear the remnants of panic in Frank's voice, and when he looked at Frank and the Ways, Frank had his knife out, ready to defend the brothers against whatever might come. It made him feel warm and fuzzy at how brave they were. "S'okay, I'm fine, just a little—woozy."

Gerard finned over. "What happened, Ray? You touched the sharktopus and then you started thrashing around. It grabbed you and—" Gerard looked defiantly at the sharktopus. "We were trying to figure out how to rescue you."

"Ah." He turned in the sharktopus' grasp and reached out to Gerard, grabbing his arm and holding tight. "We've like, bonded or something. He's in my head."

Mikey and Frank joined them. "You still you?" Mikey asked suspiciously.

"I think so. Not different, just _more_ , now."

"Does it have a name?" Frank asked. "Can I pet it?"

"Yeah, can we, Ray?"

"His name is Des." Ray grinned, feeling an echo of happiness resonating in his head. "And yeah, you can pet him." 

Frank was already busy playing with a tentacle, giggling and fending it off as Des tried to tickle him. 

"Des?" Mikey asked.

"Yeah." Ray smoothed his hand across Des' muscled flank, basking in the love flooding through him. "Short for Destroya."

-fin-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Psychic Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/346319) by [omens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omens/pseuds/omens)
  * [[podfic] bones to the other side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/460796) by [Andeincascade (Ande)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ande/pseuds/Andeincascade), [argentumlupine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentumlupine/pseuds/argentumlupine)




End file.
